They say things never really disappear on the internet and I suppose that’s true if you have the patience to search. For instance, here’s a link to my old website’s book page.…
Category: Literature
Smart Novels
Recently I had a conversation with a friend who told me about the latest rejection of her novel (by an agent). There was nothing but praise from the agent, but ultimately the verdict came down to “This book is just too smart to sell.”
Much scratching of head and muttered curses ensued and I sympathized. I’ve read the book in question and it is indeed a smart book. Very smart. It’s one of the rare examples of a novel that, from time to time, we hear about from an author in his or her cups complaining of being ignored by the publishing industry with the final dismissal of “Well, I’m just too good for them.” …
Odd Bits
“The historian of manners obeys harsher laws than those that bind the historian of facts. He must make everything seem plausible, even the Truth; whereas in the domain of history properly so-called, the impossible is justified by the fact that it occurred.” Honore de Balzac
The central paradox of contemporary Christian fundamentalism is its spin on the message that the world and its concerns are irrelevant, and that soon, very soon, it will all pass away—and then turning around and making temporal behavior the basis for an ongoing political activism that is just shy of fascistic.
…“His heart was a purple castle.Â
And Again….
“Once people envisioned the possibility of change in a fixed order, the end of an age of submission came in sight, the turn to individual conscience lay ahead. To that extent the Black Death may have been the unrecognized beginning of modern man.” Barbara Tuchman
“…a total of 15 certificates of achievement and decoration verified his integrity and competence for all the world to see. On some days he would haze at the rows of his awards in smug satisfaction. On others, he would search within the frames for some proof that he was a good man.” Michael D. Weaver, Mercedes Nights
…“Somewhere in somebody’s sacred scripture it says: ‘And there shall be caused to be built dark alleys wherein the mockers and the unrighteous shall in their turn have their heads laid open and in likewise their fat lips busted; and even this shall be pleasing in the sight of Heaven.'”Â
Today’s Quotes
In a way, doing these are a way to not have to think of something original to write. On the other hand, some of these I made up to begin with, so originality isn’t the problem. Anyway, a few more.
…Most correlations are noncausal; when correlations are causal, the fact and the strength of the correlation rarely specify the nature of the cause.
“The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or being, having an independent existence of its own. And if no real entity answering to the name could be found, men did not for that reason suppose that none existed, but imagined that it was something peculiarly abstruse and mysterious.”Â
Little Lost Book
We returned home one year from a worldcon (world science fiction convention, for those who may not know the nomenclature)—I forget which year—and promptly I lost a book. Or a box of books. You see, we’d early on gotten into the habit of mailing our purchases home rather than try to take boxes of books on the plane. (The first worldcon we went to in 1984 resulted in about three hefty boxes going back, all of which cost around a hundred and fifty dollars. Today that much would fit in one (small) box.) This system worked pretty well until this time.…
Quotes and Musings
As salve for the more astringent posts preceding, I thought I’d start putting up a series of some of my favorite quotes. I began keeping these on a pad of legal paper years ago, anytime I came across something I really liked, thinking maybe one day I could use them as epigrams. Well, the pages are starting to tear and I need to put them in some more permanent form. So I’m going to put them here. And continue the practice online. Some days I may just put up one, others I’ll do a few.
Bear in mind that in many instances I do not necessarily agree with the sentiments expressed. …
Merit and Fear
We like to believe, as Americans, that this country is a meritocracy. The idea—Horatio Alger, Thomas Edison, McGuyver, all emblematic of this notion—that the best qualified rise to the top, that those who can display and apply ability, skill, and intelligence are the ones who are selected—either by themselves or through the recognition of society—to do important jobs and that this, as opposed to elitist canards like family or school affiliation or looks or race, counts for more in this society. We like to believe that we judge people by their competence, not other things. It’s a driving national myth.
We like to tell ourselves that such people are Heroes.…
Sex, Gor, and The Good Stuff
The subject of John Norman’s Gor came up recently in a letter from a long-lost cousin. He wrote me about SF and different tastes and he mentioned this peculiar series and I thought, Damn, I haven’t thought about that since 1997.
I can name the year and even the week fairly precisely because I was in San Antonio Texas for the worldcon that year and ended up sharing an autographing session with John Norman. I’d arrived at the table first, saw the name tags, and thought It couldn’t be…
But it was.
For those who may not know of Gor, this was a series of novels published through the Seventies which I can only describe as a combination of Conan and The Arabian Nights as if written by Edgar Rice Burroughs in collaboration with the Marquis de Sade. …